Gods of Asgard Dimension of Origin: Unrevealed, possibly Asgard Habitat: Temperate Atmosphere: Earth-like Population: 500-800 (estimated) Other Associated Dimensions: The Asgardian dimension is a cosmology of inter-connected worlds of which inhabit the other known races of the Asgardian gods. Among these are Asgard (home of the gods), Vanaheim (former home of the Vanir), Alfheim (home of elves), Nidavellir (home of dwarves), Jotunheim (home of the Jotuns or giants), Svartlheim (home of the dark elves), Hel (the land of the dead) and Niffleheim (the frozen land reserved for the dishonored dead). Among these realms is Midgard, the Norse name for Earth. ==History== The Gods of Asgard are a race of superhumanly powerful humanoid beings who were once worshipped by the ancient Norse and German tribes of Western and Northern Europe between 1100 BC to 1200 AD.

The Asgardians dwell in Asgard, a cosmology of interconnected worlds adjacent to Earth; an interdimensional pathway between both realms known as Bifrost links Asgard to Earth, or Midgard as it is known among the Asgardians, with a possible interdimensional access point somewhere in Norway. The Asgardians' human worshippers in Germany called their gods by different names than those by which the gods were known in Scandinavia (Ancient Norway, Sweden and Denmark): for example, the Norse called the king of the gods Odin, whereas the Germans called him Wode or Woden. The Vikings and Saxons also carried worship of their gods to their outposts in Iceland, Britain and North America. The Asgardian gods no longer have or actively seek worshippers on Earth. However, certain Asgardian gods, notably Thor and Odin, still take active interest in the welfare of humanity. The precise origin of the Asgardian gods, like that of all of Earth's pantheons of gods, is shrouded in legend. It is believed they might have been born on Earth and relocated there at some point in the Earth's past.

According to one account, a primeval god known as Buri emerged from the frozen ice of Niffleheim. He sired a son, Bor, who took Bestla, the daughter of the Rime Giant, Bolthorn, as his wife and they had three sons, Vili, Ve and Odin , known to the Germans as Lodur, Hoenir and Wotan, who became members of the Aesir. Njord , possibly another son of Buri, sired the Vanir. Buri was later eventually replaced as ruler of the Aesir by Bor who was succeeded by his three sons. The Aesir and the Vanir lived in relative peace for several generations before they finally departed Earth for another dimension which they called Asgard. Upon departing Earth, they became known collectively as Asgardians. Odin eventually became sole ruler of the Asgardian gods. He took the goddess, Frigga , the daughter of giants, as his wife, and she sired him a number of children, among whom, Balder became the most beloved of the gods.

Odin also traveled to Earth to mate with its patron goddess, Gaea , who appeared to him in her persona of Jord in order to sire a son whose power would combine that of Asgard and that of Earth. Their son was the god, Thor , who became champion of the gods against their enemies, the Jotuns or Giants of Jotunheim. While in battle with Utgard-Loki and the Jotuns, Odin slew one their leaders, Laufey, and adopted his son, Loki , whose size was that of a god, not that of a giant. Odin raised Loki as his son alongside Thor and Balder, but Loki would grow jealous of their popularity among the other gods. Eventually, he learned of a prophecy that tied Balder's death to Ragnarok or "The Twilight of the Gods" and forced those prophecies to come to pass. However, Odin's magicks soon restored the Asgardians to life. Just how many incarnations of Asgard has existed is unrevealed.

Odin eventually learned of the coming of the Third Host of the Celestials, alien beings of inconceivable power who had influenced the evolution of humanity on Earth and who intended to judge humanity's worthiness to survive when the Fourth Host came. Odin then contact Zeus , Ruler of the Olympian gods and all the other rulers of Earth's gods once worshipped on Earth to discuss the threat of the Third Host of the Celestials. The Celestials had threatened to seal off the portals of each of their godly realms unless they promised to stop interfering in mortal affairs. Odin soon began to make plans to thwart the Fourth Host, which would arrive roughly a millennium later. He constructed a suit of armor with nearly invincible powers called the Destroyer. When the time came, he withdrew all the life-forces of the Asgardians except for Thor into himself. Odin then entered the Destroyer, animating it, thus did battle with the Fourth Host. The Celestials annihilated the Destroyer, but Gaea, backed by the mother-goddesses of each pantheon presented the Young Gods to the Celestials as evidence of the potential of humanity.

Thor petitioned the other rulers of the Earth's gods as per their pact to donate the required life energies need to restore the Odin and the rest of the Asgardians. (It is possible that that the Asgardians' "deaths" when the Destroyer was annihilated constituted another form of Ragnarok, and thus, the Asgardians have survived it once more.) In later years, the Asgardians would be threatened by a number of menaces and threats from both within and beyond their own dimension. Seth , the Egyptian god of death and misfortune, invaded Asgard and subjugated the Asgardians out of his animosity toward Odin and Thor, but he has been defeated twice. For one of Seth's manipulations, Odin stripped the Asgardians of their godhood and hid them as normal human beings upon Earth. This ordeal left them ill-equipped to battle the Dark Gods, alien entities from another dimension, who laid siege to Asgard and were finally routed by Thor, who had been trapped briefly in another alternate Earth. Odin eventually lost his life in battle with Surtur, and Thor succeeded him as ruler of the Asgardians.

Still bound by his vow to protect Earth, Thor briefly merged Asgard and Earth to better protect them both. A future incarnation of himself warned him of the future if this continued and he separated the two worlds. Loki meanwhile grew dissatisfied with Thor's rule and masterminded a revised Ragnarok to conquer Asgard. Thor was unable to defeat Loki's armies and instead realized the powers controlling Asgard's numerous incarnation of rebirth and destruction. He consulted with the shadowy beings known as Those Who Live Above In Shadow and learned they had been behind Asgard's cycles of rebirth. To break the cycle, Thor traveled to the roots of Yggdrasil and severed the thread keeping Asgard in its cycles, effectively destroying Asgard to save it. Eventually, Thor returned to Earth during the aftermath of the Superhuman Registration Act which mandated that all costumed superhumans ("superheroes") reveal their secret identities to the United States Government. He recreated Asgard as a separate republic in Oklahoma. Under unknown means, the rest of the Asgardian gods subsequently reappeared as citizens of the Balkan kingdom of Latveria, ruled by Doctor Doom, but they later rejoined Thor in the recreated Asgard.

This Asgard was subsequently attacked and destroyed by corrupt businessman Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers. The Asgardians fled Earth afterward, returning to their native dimension. Relations to other Pantheons: At some point in the past, the Asgardian gods beheld some enmity with the Greek and Roman gods after the Germanic tribes of the Franks lead invasions into Italy and Northern Greece in the Fourth Century AD, but their respective gods now seem at peace and among the most active pantheons on Earth today. Relations with the gods of the West, the Tuatha de Danaan , remained strained until recent due to the Saxon and Viking invasions to Britain and Hybernia (modern Scotland). The Asgardian connections to the Dievans , or Slavic gods in modern Russia, are rather undefined; they may be some overlap in their pantheons. (The Ancient Slavs were known to adopt gods from Iran and Germany into their pantheon). The Asgardian gods had some contact with the Anasazi gods of North America during the Viking exploration of Greenland and Northern Canada which nearly lead to strife, but this was abated with the creation of the Council Elite .

==Characteristics== Fingers: Five with opposable thumb Toes: Five Special Adaptations: The Asgardian gods are exceptionally long-lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods; they age very slowly upon reaching adulthood, but they are not invulnerable to death. They are physically more durable than human beings; their skin, bone and tissue being around three times more durable and dense than similar tissue in human beings. ==Powers== The Asgardian gods all possess certain superhuman physical attributes: Superhuman Strength: All Asgardians are superhumanly strong with the average Asgardian god able to lift (press) about 30 tons under optimal conditions and the average Asgardian goddess able to lift (press) about 25 tons under optimal conditions. Superhuman Speed: All Asgardians have the potential of being able to run and move at speeds much greater than the finest human athlete. Only Hermod and a few others can supersede the majority of the Asgardian gods. Superhuman Stamina: The musculature of the Asgardian gods produce considerably less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the muscles of human beings.

An average Asgardian god can exert themselves at peak capacity for about 24 hours before fatigue impairs them. Odin, Thor and Tyr are physically stronger than most of the Asgardian gods. Superhumanly Dense Tissue: The skin, muscle, and bone tissues of the Asgardian gods are about 3 times as dense as the same tissue of a human body, contributing, to their superhuman strength and weight. Superhuman Durability: The bodies of the Asgardian gods are considerably more resistant to physical injury than the bodies of human beings. Asgardian gods are capable of withstanding conventional injury including great impact forces, exposure to temperature and pressure extremes and falls from great heights without sustaining physical injury. Regenerative Healing Factor: Despite their natural durability, it is possible for any of the Asgardian gods to sustain injury. However, if injured, their highly advanced metabolism enables them to recover with superhuman speed and efficiency. As with most of their other powers, the speed and extent of these powers varies from one Asgardian god to another.

Immortality: The Asgardian gods are extremely long lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods: they age at a more slower rate, but they are not immune to the effects of aging. Their bodies are also immune to all known Earthly diseases and infection. Energy Manipulation: The Asgardian gods have some potential to manipulate mystical or cosmic energies for some purpose. These powers are mostly limited to changing their appearance or shape, and teleporting across great distances. However, a small minority of the Asgardian gods are capable of manipulating vast amounts of energy for a variety of purposes including teleportation, shapeshifting, matter manipulation, augmentation of their physical capabilities, erecting powerful force fields, firing powerful blasts of energy for destructive purposes and granting superhuman attributes to objects and beings. Known Abilities: The Asgardian gods possess specific skills associated with their personalities or area of expertise. For example, as the Asgardian god of thunder, Thor has complete control and mastery of the weather whereas Sjofn , the Asgardian goddess of love, is highly skilled in all forms of physical and sexual pleasure.

Most of the Asgardian gods have had some degree of training in armed and unarmed combat through private tutors or through the other gods. ==Miscellaneous== Type of Government: Monarchy Level Of Technology: Magic Cultural Traits: The Asgardian Gods were worshipped as gods in Ancient Scandinavia including modern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and most of Germany down to the northern boundary of Italy. Their culture, social structure and society resembles aspects of Pre-Germanic Teutonic Europe. Names of Representatives: Aegir , Balder , Bragi , Eir , Eostra , Forseti , Freia , Frey , Frigga , Heimdall , Hela , Hermod , Hoder , Idunn , Iwaldi , Jack Frost , Lofn , Loki , Lora , Lorelei , Magni , Mani , Mimir , Mista , Modi , Nanna , Nertha , Njord , Norns , Odin , Ran , Sif , Sigyn , Sjofn , Skadi , Solveig , Thor , Thrud , Tyr , Uller , Vali , Valkyrie , The Valkyries , Vidar , et al.

==Trivia== According to the Saxon Genealogies, Thor was Thracian in origin, descended from Trojan refugees. Among his Fourth Century descendants was Woden, a Saxon chieftain who counted Beowulf and possibly Siegfried among his descendants. Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Chieftain who seized Britain from the Celtic Ruler Vortigern (predecessor of Uther Pendragon), were also descendants of Woden. The Saxon kings are direct ancestors of the modern Royal Family of England. The possible real life counterparts of the worlds in the Asgardian cosmology: Asgard (Norway), Vanaheim (Germany), Ruthenia (Russia) Alfheim (Britain), Nidavellir (Denmark), Ginnungap (the Atlantic Ocean), Jotunheim (Italy), Svartalheim (Poland), Hel (Surtsey Island) and Niffleheim (Iceland).

(Note: Isenland appears in the legend of Sigurd, but this country is described as once existing somewhere along the Danube River.) It is conceivable that Yggdrasil could be the ancient name for Mount Glittertinden in Norway, which rises up to 8,110 feet. Yggdrasil translates as "Mountain of Ash," and ash trees are common around Glittertinden. Several of the figures in Norse myth appear to be based on figures handed down from Greek mythology, particularly Njord (Poseidon), Nertha (Demeter) and Hermod (Hermes). In fact, in some versions of the Greek Myths, the Garden of the Hesperides was in Scandinavia, much like the golden apples of the Asgardian Gods. In Marvel Comics, there seem to be quite a few characters who do not seem to be "pure" Asgardians; that is, directly related to a known figure in Scandinavian or Germanic myth. These figures include Amora the Enchantress, Fandral the Dashing, Hogun the Grim, Skurge the Executioner and Volstagg.

DC Comics, on the other hand, has not nearly done as much with the Asgardian gods as Marvel, instead focusing almost entirely on the Olympian gods. ==References== Gods, Demi-Gods And Demons by Bernard Evslin Goddesses, Heroes And Shamans by the Editors of Kingfisher Books Mythologies of All Races by Max Shapiro and Rhoda Hendricks The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe #1 (Asgardians) Norse Mythology A-Z by Kathleen Daly Viking and Norse Mythology by H. R. Ellis Davison ==External Links== Norse Mythology 5 Gods of Asgard - YouTube Norse Mythology 5 Gods of Asgard Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Oct 4, 2010 Tales from the Norse Legends by Edward Ferrie (Author), Benjamin Soames (Narrator) The tales of the Norse gods, of the giants, demons, trolls and dwarves, still have the power to fascinate more than a thousand years after they were first told. Here are the stories of the one-eyed god Odin, the all-seeing, who from his throne in Asgard the home of the gods, has to prepare for Ragnarok, the final conflict between good and evil. There are tales too of Tyr the god of war, of the cunning Loki, of Thor the mighty thunder god and a host of others. These retellings of the old tales are given extra dramatic perspective by the music of Mahler, Greig, Smetana, They come to life as never before.

Category Asgard - Norse Mythology for Smart People Norse Mythology for Smart People Search for: Asgard The Rainbow Bridge between Asgard and Midgard in Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, directed by Otto Schenk (1990) Asgard ( Old Norse Ásgarðr, “Enclosure of the Aesir ) is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology and the home and fortress of the Aesir, one of the two tribes of gods (the other being the Vanir , who have their home in Vanaheim ). Asgard is located in the sky[1] (albeit spiritually rather than physically, of course) and is connected to Midgard , the world of humanity, by the rainbow bridge Bifrost . The -gard element in Asgard’s name is a reference to the ancient Germanic concept of the distinction between the innangard and utangard . That which is innangard (“inside the fence”) is orderly, law-abiding, and civilized, while that which is utangard (“beyond the fence”) is chaotic, anarchic, and wild.

This applies both to the geographical plane and the human psyche; thoughts and actions can be innangard or utangard just as readily as spatial locations. Asgard is the ultimate model of the innangard, while Jotunheim , the “Homeland of the Giants ,” is the epitome of the utangard. Midgard (“Middle Enclosure”), the world of human civilization, is, as the name implies, somewhere in the middle – not quite as innangard as Asgard and not quite as utangard as Jotunheim. But Midgard is a space enclosed, on the geographical plane, by fences, and on the psychological plane by norms and laws. This makes it much closer – at least in theory – to Asgard than to Jotunheim. In other words, Asgard is the divine model upon which the pre-Christian Norse people patterned their world. Looking for more great information on Norse mythology and religion? While this site provides the ultimate online introduction to the topic, my book The Viking Spirit provides the ultimate introduction to Norse mythology and religion period. I’ve also written a popular list of The 10 Best Norse Mythology Books , which you’ll probably find helpful in your pursuit.

References: Asgard | The Norse Gods The Norse Gods In The Realms Asgard, in Norse mythology, is the abode of the gods. Access to Asgard was possible only by crossing the bridge Bifrost (the rainbow). Asgard was divided into 12 or more realms in which each principal god had his own luxurious mansion of gold or silver. The most important palace was Valhalla , the home of Odin , the chief of the gods. Asgard, in Norse mythology, is one of the nine worlds and the homeland of the Aesir, the race of warrior gods. Located on the highest level of the Norse universe, it is surrounded by a high wall of closely fitted stone block The walls surrounding Asgard were built by Blast (or Hrimthurs), who asked in payment the hand of Freyja plus the sun and the moon. Odin agreed providing the walls be complete in six months. Hrimthurs had a magic horse, named Svadilfari, who helped him in his work. To Odin’s (and the other gods, especially Freya’s) horror, with but a few days left, Blast was almost finished.

Loki , the trickster, turned himself into a mare and beguiled the stallion Svadilfari away. The job was not completed in time and no payment was given. Also found on this level are the worlds of Alfheim and Vanaheim as well as Valhalla, an immense hall where warriors slain in battle await the final conflict. In the middle of Asgard lies the plain of Idavoll (or Ida) where the Aesir meet to decide important issues. There the gods assemble in the hall of Gladsheim and the goddesses in the hall of Vingolf. The gods also meet daily at the Well of Urd, beneath the Asgard root of the ash tree Yggdrasil. LEVS : Viking FAQs : Religious Beliefs Did Vikings live in the Christian age? What are some Viking myths or legends? The Vikings had many myths, about their idea of creation, about the deeds of their gods such as Odin, Thor, Freya and others, and about the deeds of ancient Vikings. These stories were meant to be told around the fire to teach the young about the realm of the Vikings, and were handed down from generation to generation over many centuries.

In about 1200-1300, some of these legends began to be written down. The written ones were called Sagas, and were mostly written down by Vikings in Iceland. These have been incorporated into later books and stories about Vikings. Other sources are the Eddas, or ancient folk tales. One important myth is the Viking story of creation, or how the world was made. In brief, the earth, named Midgard was formed from nothing. From nothing sprang the mists of Niflheim in the North. In the south there formed a realm of fire called Muspellsheim. When these realms met, water drops from the melting frost formed the first being, or frost giant named Ymir. Other giants then formed under his left arm, a man and a woman. From the offspring of these other giants were born three gods, Odin, Vili, and Ve. These three killed the giant Ymir and from his body they made the earth, or Midgard, between Niflheim and Muspellsheim. In Midgard, the gods set to work to build their palace, or Asgard, where they were joined by other gods.

Later, dwarfs appeared, and the first two human beings, Ask and Embla, man and woman, were made by Odin from two trees. The three worlds of creation were held together at their axis by the great ash tree, Yggdrasil, with roots in Niflheim and branches spreading above Asgard. The myth goes on from there to describe the acts of the gods, their battles with giants and dwarfs, and the gigantic hall, Valhalla, where slain warriors were carried by the Valkyries to spend their days in bloody battles and be restored to health each night with laughing, drinking, and feasting. The chief god was Odin, who ruled over all others. He gave up one eye to receive all wisdom, and is always depicted with only one eye. Many myths describe the exploits of Odin and the other gods. There may be books in your local library about the Vikings and their gods and others are for sale in bookstores and on Amazon.com. Search on the Internet for "Viking Myths and Legends" and find much additional information. The Viking Age gods slowly gave way to the spread of Christianity in Scandinavia beginning about 950 A.D.

By the 13th century, nearly all of the people of Scandinavia had become Christian. This greatly altered the world view of the people and was a factor in bringing about the end of the Viking Age. Vestiges of the Viking age remain in our modern culture, however, such as some days of the week, (Tyr's Day, Odin's Day, Thor's Day, and Freya's Day, or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday), in midsummer and winter solstice festivals, and other cultural events. To top What religion or beliefs did the Vikings have? The Vikings lived during the ending days of paganism and had multiple gods to worship. The term "evil" gods is always relative to the time they lived in, as a warrior's best death would be in battle with a sword in his hand! Many of their gods suited their way of life, looking over abundant crops, health, family and other things besides war, but, of course you only hear of the "active ones" Odin, Thor and others. Several of our weekdays are named after Viking gods. Wednesday was named after Wodin (Odin), Thursday: Thor; Friday: Freya (god of fertility).

To top What were the Viking�s beliefs about the afterlife? Much like the ancient Greeks, the Vikings had neither a positive or negative view of the afterlife. They believed for the most part, the dead, if they had lived an unexceptional life, would travel to a place called "Hel" (which is where the modern word "hell" comes from) which lies far to the north and under ground. It was a thought of as being a cold and damp place where the spirits of the dead continued in a dreamlike form of existence. It was not particularly happy, but it was not torturous and was viewed as a long sleep. There were other ideas of an afterlife that were believed as well. There was another realm beneath Hel, where people who had lived bad lives were gnawed upon by a serpent called "Nidhoggr". They slept in a hall that was made of snakes and dripped poison. This place, called "Nastrond", was located on the shore of an ice cold subterranean sea. Those who lived exceptional lives in a positive way could expect to travel to "Asgard", the home of the Gods. They would spend the afterlife in happiness.

The exact dwelling that was given to these people depended upon their lives. For example: hero's who died in battle would go to "Vahalla" the "Hall of the slain", and live with Odin the king of the Gods. Here they spent all day fighting each other, only to rise from the battlefield in the evening healed of their wounds and then spent the rest of the night feasting. The main theme of the afterlife seems to have been repetition. It was not however, believed to be eternal. They believed that the world of both the living and dead, gods and monsters would one day be destroyed and the universe would begin anew. To top Who were the Viking gods? If you want to remember the main Viking gods, just think of the days of the week. Tuesday was once Tyr's Day after the god Tyr. Wednesday was once Odin's Day, after the god Odin. And Thursday was Thor's Day, after Thor. Friday was Freya's Day, after Freyr, or Freyja. These names came down from early English, which was strongly influenced by Norse names and other words dating to the times of these gods. The Vikings believed in these and other lesser gods, as did other people in northern Europe at the time.

In Germany, for example, Odin was Wotan or Wodan, as known in the myths and gods of the Wagnerian Operas. Odin was the god of death or battle, ruling over Valhalla where warriors went after heroic death. Tyr was the god of the sky, bringing daylight and dark. Thor, or thunder god, was the god of war, the storm god, and a mighty warrior whose weapon was Thor's Hammer. Njord was god of the sea, bringing luck to sailors. He was the father of Freyr and Freyja. Freyr and his sister Freyja were the gods of harvest and fertility. Other lesser gods & heroes included Loki, god of mischief and trickery, Heimdal, guardian of the rainbow bridge into Asgard, dwelling place of the gods, Aegir, Ran, Hoenir, and others. There were also giants, dwarfs and monsters. Most of these gods were known to have evolved well before the Viking age which was mainly the ninth and tenth centuries. Some say they are roughly equivalent to and derived from the ancient Greek gods known in southern Europe. These gods all existed in a world known to the Vikings, mainly as great heroes of an earlier time.

Vikings would often choose from these gods one of special appeal to them, to honor and to ask for good luck, victory in battle, bountiful harvests, and the like. Many wore a miniature Thor's hammer on their necks as a good luck charm. By the eleventh century, Christianity had spread into most of Scandinavia and was replacing these older beliefs. In some remote areas, however, older practices and superstitions continued among the people for several hundred years, often alongside Christianity. To top Did Vikings live in the Christian age? Toward the end of the Viking Age, from about 1000 to 1066, the Christian Church became more of an influence on the Vikings and they became less warlike. Even Leif Ericson, the first European to set foot on the North American Continent, was an emissary of the church, converting his mother (his father staunchly remained a pagan) and others around him in Greenland. Ragnarök: the doom of the gods | Books | The Guardian Ragnarök: the doom of the gods This Norse saga of the gods destroying themselves is the perfect allegory for 21st-century environmental catastrophe Engraving of Ragnarök, the last battle.

Photograph: Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy Friday 5 August 2011 17.55 EDT First published on Friday 5 August 2011 17.55 EDT Share on Messenger Close Myth comes from muthos in Greek, something said, as opposed to something done. We think of myths as stories, although, as Heather O'Donoghue says in her book From Asgard to Valhalla , there are myths that are not essentially narratives at all. We think of them loosely as tales that explain, or embody, the origins of our world. Karen Armstrong writes in A Short History of Myths that myths are ways of making things comprehensible and meaningful in human terms (the sun as a chariot driven by a woman through the firmament) and that they are almost all "rooted in death and the fear of extinction". Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy , sees myths as dreamlike shapes and tales constructed by the Apollonian principle of order and form to protect humans against the apprehension of the Dionysian states of formlessness, chaos and gleeful destruction.

Tragedy controls the primeval force of music by presenting us with beautiful illusory forms of gods, demons, men and women, through whom apprehension is bearable and possible. He wrote: "Every culture that has lost myth has lost, by the same token, its natural healthy creativity. Only a horizon ringed about with myths can unify a culture. The forces of imagination and the Apollonian dream are saved only by myth from indiscriminate rambling. The images of myth must be the daemonic guardians, ubiquitous but unnoticed, presiding over the growth of the child's mind and interpreting to the mature man his life and struggles." Nietzsche's heroes were Aeschylus and Sophocles, whose characters are mythic beings. He did not approve of Euripides, who tried to humanise the actors in these stories, give them individual "characters" and personalities. Even as a small child I was aware that there was a difference between reading myths and reading fairytales, or stories about real people, or stories about imaginary real people. Gods, demons and other actors in myths do not have personalities or characters in the way people in novels do.

They do not have psychology, though Freud used the mythical life of Oedipus as a way of describing the machinery of the unconscious. They have attributes – Hera and Frigg are essentially jealous, Thor is violent, Mars is warlike, Baldur is beautiful and gentle, Diana of Ephesus is fertile and virginal. I remember, seeing that goddess in the stony flesh for the first time, with her many-layered breasts, that I understood there was a sense in which she was more real than I was or would ever be – more people believed in her, thought about her, saw their world in ways dependent on her existence. Mythical beings are also more and less real than characters in novels. Don Quixote tries to enter the world of myth and the disparity between his real and his imagined worlds becomes almost a mythical force in itself. Anna Karenina, Prince Myshkin, Emma Bovary, Gustav von Aschenbach are human characters with idiosyncrasies and individuality – but their tales are complicated by the presence in them of impersonal myths. Aschenbach is a battleground for Nietzsche's Apollo and Dionysos; Prince Myshkin is a human being trying to be a Christlike man.

For several years I used to teach an evening class on myth and reality in the novel in which we looked at the mythical forms which found themselves as one thread in more (or less) realist fictions. My own novels also have threads of myth in their narrative, which are an essential part of the thought and the form of the books, and of the way the characters take in the world. I chose the Norse myth of Ragnarök because my childhood experience of reading and rereading Asgard and the Gods by Wilhelm Wägner and others was the place where I had first experienced the difference between myth and fairytale. I didn't "believe in" the Norse gods, and indeed used my sense of their world to come to the conclusion that the Christian story was another myth, the same kind of story about the nature of things, but less interesting and less exciting. The myths didn't give me narrative satisfaction like fairy stories, which seem to me to be stories about stories, to give their reader the pleasure of recognising endlessly repeated variations on the same narrative patterns.

In fairy stories – if you accept the bloody violence, and the horrible things that happen to the bad characters – the point is a pleasurable and satisfactory foreseen outcome, where the good survive and thoughts on myths multiply and the bad are punished. The Grimms thought their collected fairytales were the ancient folk religion of their German ancestors, but there is a difference. Hans Andersen did not write impersonal fairy stories of this kind, or not often – he wrote nuanced stories with characters, personalities and feelings in them, authored stories, works of the imagination. I felt he was trying to frighten or hurt me as a reader. I still think he was. Myths are often unsatisfactory, even tormenting. They puzzle and haunt the mind that encounters them. They shape different parts of the world inside our heads, and they shape them not as pleasures, but as encounters with the inapprehensible – the numinous, to use a word that was very fashionable when I was a student. The fairy stories were in my head like little bright necklaces of intricately carved stones and wood and enamels.

The myths were cavernous spaces, lit in extreme colours, gloomy, or dazzling, with a kind of cloudy thickness and a kind of overbright transparency about them. I met a description of being taken over by a myth in a poem my mother gave me, WJ Turner's "Romance". When I was but thirteen or so I went into a golden land, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Took me by the hand. My father died, my brother too, They passed like fleeting dreams. I stood where Popocatapetl I dimly heard the master's voice And boys far-off at play – Chimborazo, Cotopaxi I walked in a great golden dream To and fro from school – Shining Popocatapetl The dusty streets did rule. I walked home with a gold dark boy, And never a word I'd say, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had taken my speech away. I gazed entranced upon his face Fairer than any flower – It was thy magic hour: The houses, people, traffic seemed Thin fading dreams by day; Chimborazo, Cotopaxi They had stolen my soul away! I recognised that state of mind, that other world.

The words in my head were not Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, but Ginnungagap, Yggdrasil and Ragnarök. And in later life there were other moments like this. Aeneas seeing the Sibyl of Cumae writhing in the cave. "Immanis in antro bacchatur vates." Or Milton's brilliant snake crossing Paradise, erect upon his circling folds. When Canongate invited me to contribute a title to their myth series, I knew immediately which myth I wanted to write. It should be Ragnarök, the myth to end all myths, the myth in which the gods themselves were all destroyed. There were versions of this story in which the world, which had ended in a flat plane of black water, was cleansed and resurrected, like the Christian world after the last judgment. But the books I read told me that this could well be a Christian interpolation, and I found it weak and thin compared with all the brilliant destruction. No, the wolf swallowed the king of the gods, the snake poisoned Thor, everything was burned in a red light and drowned in blackness. It was, you might say, satisfactory.

I found it harder than I had expected to find a voice for telling the myth that was not vatic, or chaunting, or admonitory in the wrong way. The civilisation I live in thinks less and less in terms of raw myth, I think, and the idea of many other writers in the Canongate series has been to assimilate the myths into the form of novels, or modern stories, retell the tales as though the people had personalities and psychologies. There is also a particularly interesting retelling of the stories by the Danish novelist Villy Sørensen, published in Danish as Ragnarok: En gudefortælling and in English as The Downfall of the Gods . Sørensen grew up, he says, in the world influenced by the Christian teaching of NFS Grundtvig, who argued in his Northern Mythology (1808) that the war between the Norse gods and the giants was "the fight of the spirit against the baser side of human nature – as culture's perpetual fight against barbarity".

The followers of Grundtvig believed that the "new world" depicted in a poem in the Elder Edda as arising after the catastrophe of Ragnarök – which was named Gimle – was an analogy of the Christian second coming, the new heaven and the new earth foretold in Revelation. Sørensen suggests, as did the German scholars who wrote Asgard and the Gods, that because the tales were written down by Icelanders who were already Christian, their interpretations and forms may have been influenced by Christianity. The Danes thought in terms of Ragnarök followed by Gimle after their defeat by the Prussians in 1864, and Sørensen's version is part of a Scandinavian attempt to rescue the myth from the Germanic (and eventually Nazi) connotations involved in the history of Wagner's Götterdämmerung . Sørensen's way of rescuing and retelling the Norse myth is to humanise it as a battlefield between power and love, with Loki – both god and giant – as a central and conflicted figure. Sørensen's Valhalla is human and domestic. His gods have feelings, doubts, psychological problems.

He ends, not with Gimle, but with the end of the world – he has chosen, he says, between Ragnarök and Gimle, and aroused great anger among religious Danes by doing so. What he does, in a very interesting way, is precisely what I felt prohibited from doing. I tried once or twice to find a way of telling the myth that preserved its distance and difference, and finally realised that I was writing for my childhood self, and the way I had found the myths and thought about the world when I first read Asgard and the Gods. So I introduced the figure of the "thin child in wartime". This is not a story about this thin child – she is thin partly because she was thin, but also because what is described of her world is thin and bright, the inside of her reading and thinking head, and the ways in which she related the worlds of Asgard and The Pilgrim's Progress to the world and the life she inhabited. The war might well have destroyed the thin child's world. She built her own contrary myth in her head. Even if – indeed when – she herself came to an end the earth would go on renewing itself.

The fair field was full of flowers, the sky was full of birds, the tangled bank hid a world of struggle, water was alive with swimming and wriggling things. The death of the gods is a linear tale, with a beginning, a middle and an end. A human life is a linear tale. Myths proceed to disaster and maybe to resurrection. The thin child believed in the eternal recurrence of growing things, and in weather. But if you write a version of Ragnarök in the 21st century, it is haunted by the imagining of a different end of things. We are a species of animal which is bringing about the end of the world we were born into. Not out of evil or malice, or not mainly, but because of a lopsided mixture of extraordinary cleverness, extraordinary greed, extraordinary proliferation of our own kind, and a biologically built-in short-sightedness. Every day I read of a new extinction, of the bleaching of the coral and the disappearance of the codfish the thin child caught in the North Sea with a hook and line, when there were always more where those came from.

I read of human projects that destroy the world they are in, ingeniously, ambitiously engineered oil wells in deep water, a road across the migration paths of the beasts in the Serengeti park, farming of asparagus in Peru, helium balloons to transport the crops more cheaply, emitting less carbon while the farms themselves are dangerously depleting the water that the vegetables, and the humans and other creatures, depend on. I wanted to write the end of our Midgard – but not to write an allegory or a sermon. Almost all the scientists I know think we are bringing about our own extinction, more and more rapidly. Many of the weeds in the fields the thin child sees and thinks of as eternal are already made extinct by modern farming methods. Clouds of plovers do not rise. Thrushes no longer break snails on stones, and the house sparrow has vanished from our gardens. In a way the Midgard Serpent is the central character in my story. She loves to see the fish she kills and consumes, or indeed kills for fun, the coral she crushes and bleaches. She poisons the earth because it is her nature.

When I began working on this story I had a metaphor in mind – I saw the death-ship, Naglfar, made of dead men's nails, as an image for what is now known as the trash vortex, the wheeling collection of indestructible plastic in the Pacific, larger than Texas. I thought how it had grown from the plastic beakers Thor Heyerdahl was distressed to find floating in the empty ocean, on his Kon-Tiki voyage in 1947. But I wanted to tell the myth in its own terms, as the thin child discovered it. I have said I did not want to humanise the gods. But I always had in mind the wisdom of that most intelligent thinker about gods, humans and morality, Ludwig Feuerbach . "Homo homini deus est," he wrote, describing how our gods of Love, Wrath, Courage, Charity were in fact projections of human qualities we constructed from our sense of ourselves. He was talking about the incarnate god of Christianity, a god in man who to Feuerbach was a manmade god. George Eliot translated Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity fluently and flexibly, and its influence is strong in her work.

But there is a sense in which the Norse Gods are peculiarly human in a different way. They are human because they are limited and stupid. They are greedy and enjoy fighting and playing games. They are cruel and enjoy hunting and jokes. They know Ragnarök is coming, but are incapable of imagining any way to fend it off, or change the story. They know how to die gallantly but not how to make a better world. "Homo homini lupus est – man is a wolf to man", wrote Hobbes , describing the wolf inside; Hobbes who had a grim vision of the life of men as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Loki is the only one who is clever and Loki is irresponsible and wayward and mocking. Deryck Cooke, in I Saw the World End , his splendid study of Wagner's Ring Cycle, shows how intelligently Wagner constructed his character, Loge, from the available sources of the myths. Wagner's Loge is, Cooke says, the god of fire and the god of thought. The Loki of the old myths is only half a god, and possibly related to the giants and demons.

It is probably a false etymology that connects the Germanic fire spirit Logi with the Loki of the Eddas, but Wagner's Loge is both a solver of problems and the bringer of the flames that destroy the World-Ash. As a child I had always sympathised with Loki, because he was a clever outsider. When I came to write this tale I realised that Loki was interested in chaos – his stories contain flames and waterfalls, the formless things inside which chaos theorists perceive order inside disorder. He is interested in the order in destruction and the destruction in order. If I were writing an allegory he would be the detached scientific intelligence which could either save the earth or contribute to its rapid disintegration. As it is, the world ends because neither the all-too-human gods, with their armies and quarrels, nor the fiery thinker know how to save it. AS Byatt will appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 28 August.

ASGARD - the Norse legendary place (Norse mythology) ASGARD Also known as ÁSGARÐR, ASGARDR, ÆSGARD, GODHEIM, GOÐHEIMR, GOÐHEIMAR, ÅSGARD, ASGÅRD, AASGARD, ASGAARD Famous Norse HQ where the Aesir Gods hang out One of the most popular and well-known bits of the NINE-WORLDS , ASGARD lies at the far side of BIFROST the Rainbow Bridge. Security is very tight. You won’t get in unless you’re a dead hero on the way to VALHALLA via the tradesman’s entrance. The halls of ASGARD have been built to withstand the onslaught of giants, and for extra security the exact geography of the place is a closely-guarded secret. Although brochures of the warrior’s paradise VALHALLA are readily available, what goes on in THRUDHEIM and the remaining halls is out of bounds. The Gods seem to do most of their carousing at their local club, a banqueting hall called GLADSHEIM .

They are often to be found hanging out at the Well of Urd to catch up on the latest gossip from the Three NORNS as they sit in the shade of YGGDRASIL . There are another six regions floating about somewhere. Even the most ancient legends contradict each other on the subject. We would guess that after enough beers it all makes sense. ASGARD FACTS AND FIGURES Cite this Link to this page HTML: To link to this page, just copy and paste the text below into your blog, web page or email. <a href="">Godchecker entry on ASGARD, the Norse legendary place</a> BBCODE: To link to this page in a forum post or comment box, just copy and paste the text below: [url= entry on ASGARD, the Norse legendary place[/url] Cite this article Here's the info you need to cite this page. Just copy the text in the box below. Saunders, Chas, and Peter J. Allen, eds. "ASGARD - the Norse legendary place (Norse mythology)." <em>Godchecker</em>. Godchecker.com / CID, 05 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 January 2017.

. 05 October 2013 by the Godchecker Team. Editors: Peter J Allen, Chas Saunders References: Coming soon. Viking Culture - How the Vikings Worked | HowStuffWorks How the Vikings Worked A dragon ship, as depicted in a manuscript Anglo-Saxon School/The Bridgeman Art Library/ Getty Images Vikings were pagans -- they worshipped a pantheon of multilpe gods and goddessess, each one representing some aspect of the world as they experienced it. Scandinavians eventually converted to Christianity, but more slowly than other peoples of Europe . There was no central church in any of the Scandinavian kingdoms, nor were any of their religious traditions consistently written down. As a result, Viking religion was highly personalized and varied from one place to another. It evolved over time to a greater extent than codified religions usually do [source: Wolf ]. Central to their religion were two groups of gods, the Aesir and the Vanir. The gods lived in Asgard, a kingdom that was connected to mortal Earth (known as Midgard) by a rainbow bridge known as Bifrost.

The pantheon included Odin, the primary god, Thor, the hammer-wielding god of thunder, and Frejya, the goddess of fertility and beauty. There were also evil giants, dark elves and dwarves. The gods were destined to fight against the giants and other evil forces in a battle known as Ragnarok. Norse prophecy predicted that the gods would lose this battle, allowing Asgard, Midgard and the entire universe to collapse into darkness and chaos. Up Next Charles I of England Quiz Warriors who died nobly in battle could end up in Valhalla, a sort of warrior heaven where everyone gets to fight alongside Odin, die, feast and do it all over again the next day. They were escorted to Valhalla by the Valkyrie, which were sort of like warrior angels who assisted Odin. In truth, there were no female Viking warriors -- Scandinavian society was primarily patriarchal, with men holding most political and economic power. When wealthy or powerful Vikings died, their body may have been burned on a boat along with many of their possessions, or they may have been entombed in a barrow, a large earthen chamber. In either case, pets and sometimes slaves were sacrificed and buried (or burned) along with the Viking.

There is also evidence that Scandinavians offered ritual human sacrifices in religious ceremonies [source: Wolf ]. Vikings didn't write down their history (except for the occasional runestone inscription) until they had converted to Christianity. Any history prior to that was passed on through an oral tradition carried on by skalds. Skalds were Scandinavian bards who recited epic poems (called sagas) recounting the deeds of famous Viking kings and lords. These poems could be incredibly long and detailed. Some of the sagas were eventually written down in later eras, but most of them are lost to history. These are the Viking traditions, but what about that symbol most often associated with the Vikings: the horned helmet? We'll look at the military and nonmilitary technology used by the Vikings in the next section. ­

Question: Asgard is home to the gods of what culture?
Answer: Norse